


proof

by poalimal



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Baking, Developing Relationship, Fridge Horror?, Gen, References to Assassination Attempt(s), references to trauma, triggers?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 14:02:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19200337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poalimal/pseuds/poalimal
Summary: If you are always hungry, and just as often denied, how can you form your personhood?





	proof

 

 **proof**. (also _**prove**_.) _of bread dough_. become aerated by the action of yeast; rise.

 

 

Dmitri Babanin was the fourth son of a wealthy politician, and had deviated from the path of his brothers, uncles and mother. He had instead opted to go to culinary school in France. Thereafter he had spent many years and very little money in India, Turkey, Togo, and Haiti. He spoke often of food as a building block for mutual humanity.

'If you are always hungry,' he said in a recent interview, 'and just as often denied, how can you form your personhood? Your morality? Crime is often not unthinking - sometimes it is the result of the lawful choice being weighed against the lifegiving choice. We who have awoken to our privileges cannot possibly understand these painful everyday choices! Therefore we must eliminate these daily impossible questions, and daily support our most vulnerable.'

He had spoken publicly enough, passionately enough about passing certain unpopular laws ('Every person, every meal') that he had proven to be a problem. Order required pain, yes - but chaos only invited it.

Like most others, though, Dmitri Babanin was controlled by his habits: he always wintered, largely anonymous, in Laishevo, always rented the same small cottage away from town, always took weeks to respond to messages.

'I admit I am heartsick over this whole unfortunate business. I suppose this is why my mother told me I haven't the temperament for politics,' he had told Hema Singh in an unsent email two weeks ago. 'Forgive me if I spend the next few weeks feeling sorry and pathetic for myself - when I return to you in Moscow, I will be restored to myself and to you - your Dimulya.'

The oven in Dmitri Babanin's cottage in Laishevo was not modern, and required him to manually light the pilot light. The fridge was small, and could only fit a few items at a time. No matter, Dmitri Babanin said once, chuckling - it is almost colder outside the fridge than within!

He spoke to himself often, the Asset noticed. Made lots of little jokes.

It was nothing he included in his mission notes. It was... he located the words: _a personal observation_. The details that did not matter. The details they eliminated anyway.

The Asset watched Dmitri Babanin uncover the pans of dough while the oven heated up. Seven hours he had waited for the yeast to take, two hours he had left the dough, divvied out into pieces, at room temperature. He was now at what appeared to be a final step, carefully painting each ball of dough with a combination of egg and water.

As was the case whenever Dmitri Babanin began cooking, he became wholly focused, and he would remain in the kitchen until he had fully completed his task. The Asset was not worried that Dmitri Babanin would, for example, suddenly remember something he had forgotten in the half-open closet (this was where the Asset waited). Nor did he think it likely that Dmitri Babanin would suddenly be overcome with the desire to fly all the way back to Moscow to see why Hema Singh had never responded to the emails he thought he had sent. In fact, Dmitri Babanin was so intent on his task that the Asset could've very easily ended his mission before Dmitri Babanin ever noticed anything amiss.

But it would not have been--, here the Asset faltered. _Fair_ was not the right word. _Right_ was not it, either.

Appropriate, he decided, taking in the expression on Dmitri Babanin's face as he opened the oven door: it would not have been _appropriate_ to cut short his own mission at the expense of Dmitri Babanin's. It was apparent that they were equally proficient at the tasks before them.

The Asset watched Dmitri Babanin slide the pan of bread into the oven with a little smile. Having tested and re-tested the oven's capabilities so many times since arriving at the cottage in Laishevo, Dmitri Babanin did not need to set his watch this time. After a while, completing a difficult, repetitive task with efficiency came down to your tools, your skills -

and of course, thought the Asset, slipping out of the closet, your _timing_.

 

* * *

 

'You don't usually come into the kitchen,' Sam said, sprinkling flour on the counter.

He said it as a statement, as if he wasn't looking for a response - but he looked over at Bucky afterwards, as if he wanted to know his reaction.

It was new, this addition to their dynamic: Sam testing him, Sam trying to understand him more.

'Not usually, no,' Bucky said, warmed. He looked around the kitchen before he could be coaxed into a smile. 'Too many things you can use as weapons.'

Sam smirked. 'You would know,' he said. A joke? Bucky found it hard to read peoples' tone sometimes, and so often missed the window to get upset at the things people said.

Bucky shrugged. 'Yea,' he agreed. 'I would.'

'...Guess I walked into that one,' Sam muttered, kneading the dough lightly. 'Well, we don't need any knives for this, so we should be fine.'

'Yea,' said Bucky, leaning closer. 'I definitely only know how to kill people with knives. Yup.' And he gave into his smile.

Sam tried to stifle his laugh. Bucky was glad he didn't try too hard: he liked Sam's laugh. 'You're lucky I've got a fucked up sense of humour, man,' he said, shaking his head.

'I'm the luckiest,' Bucky said honestly. 'So what are we making, anyway?' He liked when Sam said 'we'.

' _We_ are making biscuits,' Sam said. 'Go wash your hands and hand me that rolling pin.' Bucky complied. 'Thank you!'

'You said we were making biscuits,' he said, peering over Sam's shoulder as he rolled out the dough. 'But I saw you using yeast...?' He was pretty sure biscuits had eggs in them. Weren't they kinda like... dry matzo balls? Or something.

'Well, aren't you a regular Julia Child,' said Sam, grinning over his shoulder. (Bucky immediately resolved to go look up Julia Child.) 'But, well... I guess these are a Southern thing, cus they use yeast instead of eggs. My mom's from Alabama, originally, and she would always cook these for us on Sunday, before we went off to church. Here,' he handed Bucky a small hollow steel circle, 'can you help me start cutting them out, please?'

Bucky complied again, cutting out little circles until all he had were the left-over bits. Sam placed his own circles of dough onto the pan he'd sprayed earlier. Then, while Bucky was clumsily placing his half of the biscuits next to Sam's, he rolled out all the leftovers and made a slightly too big biscuit.

'This one will be for Steve,' Sam said with a grin. Bucky grinned too, imagining hiding Steve's spare key to Sam's apartment. 'He _loves_ biscuits.'

'I wish I had a big biscuit,' Bucky mumbled.

Sam opened the oven and slid the pan of biscuits inside with a happy little hum. He was ignoring him!

'I said, I wish _I_ had a b-i-g biscuit,' Bucky said, louder.

Sam dusted his hands off, winced at the floor, and then headed for the closet. 'I don't respond well to passive-aggressiveness, Barnes,' he called, from inside.

A silence followed.

What was taking Sam so long in there? Bucky could physically feel himself stiffening up but he didn't know how to stop it. He forcibly unclenched his hands.

'I'm going to need you to use your words,' Sam continued, finally coming out of the closet with a broom and dustpan. The relief that Bucky felt at seeing him again was as ridiculous as it was inexhaustible: it just kept coming.

Bucky took a deep breath and let it out, relaxing his shoulders. Use your words, huh?

I want to not care about the bigger biscuit, Bucky could have said. I want to know you so well, and for you to know me so well, and need me so much, that it doesn't matter how many fuckin' biscuits you bake Steve, or how ridiculously big they are, I won't fuckin' care, cus I'll just have you. I want to not care about it, but I can't, because I don't have you - and I don't know if I ever will.

Sure, Bucky could've said those things - but Sam wasn't ready for them. And maybe Bucky wasn't ready for them, either. He didn't know how to give them to Sam in the way that he deserved. Probably they would just scare him off if he said them now.

Really, it all came down to timing. And he had to trust that there was time enough for him to reach Sam. That Sam would one day want to be reached.

So instead, he shot Sam a smile and said, 'Sam... can you make me a big biscuit, too? Please?'

'Hey, that was great! Wasn't too hard, was it?' said Sam, dumping the flour-y dustpan out into the garbage bin.

'No, not really,' Bucky admitted. Sam leaned the broom and dustpan up against the wall. He did not come over and start mixing together more flour and yeast and whatever - in fact, he began to whistle to himself, sounding like nothing so much as a spring lark.

Bucky narrowed his eyes, watching him. 'You're not gonna make me a biscuit, huh.'

'Oh, absolutely not,' said Sam, beaming at him. There was a laugh hiding somewhere at the top of his expression and Bucky couldn't even be mad at him because he was just so goddamn cute. _Ugh_.

Bucky scowled down at the sink just to have something to do that wasn't watching Sam sidle closer to wash his hands.

He was close enough that Bucky could--, that he could--

'But I _will_ ,' Sam said, drying his hands, 'show you how to make the biscuits yourself. You should feel honoured, man! This is a family recipe,' he laughed to himself, 'practically a state secret. Here, move over some, please.' He clapped Bucky on the shoulder as he switched sides with him. Bucky held himself very still and careful, and tried to breathe like a normal human being.

Obviously there was nothing normal about him - but sometimes it was nice to pretend.

'I think you might like baking, actually,' Sam was saying, handing him the measuring cup. 'Have you ever done it before?'

'Never really baked myself,' said Bucky. 'But I knew a chef once.'

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a result of me buying brioche, and wondering how to make it myself lol.
> 
> I. The definition I used for 'proof' at the beginning is actually pulled from the definition for 'prove' from The Oxford Dictionary. I did not feel right about citing Oxford outright, as I modified the definition to encompass the alternative spelling and changed some of the formatting. Definitely didn't come up with it on my own, though.  
> II. The recipes I referenced for this fic are [brioche (by hand)](https://12tomatoes.com/bread-recipe-breathtaking-brioche/) and [angel biscuits](https://www.restlesschipotle.com/angel-biscuits-recipe/). (There are definitely easier brioche recipes that use stand mixers!)  
> II. The words of Dmitri Babanin's interview have been inspired by a lot of anti-poverty writing that I've read in pieces and in passing over the years (thx tumblr!). The pull quote is kind of a specious allusion to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and tbh is the kind of earnest classism that I think a character like Dmitri would be familiar with. Anyway, I wouldn't know where to start to find the much more cogent anti-poverty writing that I've read before, but I guess I'll keep looking and update this note later. His words were also inspired v e r y generically by Assata Shakur's very specific quote: 'Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. We are shaped by our oppression. We are being manufactured in droves in the ghetto streets, places like attica, san quetin, bedford hills, leavenworth, and sing sing.'  
> III. The line 'order required pain, yes - but chaos invited it' is in reference to some of Brock Rumlow's shit dialogue in The Winter Soldier.  
> IV. I referenced my own fic nights in here bc I am rrrrrrreductive!!  
> V. I like to think that the arm Shuri developed for Bucky is easier to clean.


End file.
